In the country of Bedenia, officials have recently

Good question thelosthippie +1 kudo.

KEY is: "....reduce dangerous wait times at emergency rooms in the country’s hospitals". ==> Not only urban area. What if dangerous wait times happen mainly in rural areas. But the initiative just try to increase doctors and nurses in major city hospitals. So we need to determine which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms

B is correct.

Confused between A and B.

One doubt i have on B is : if we get to know that hospitals in rural areas have dangerous wait times.. can this statement resolve our doubt???

I do not fully agree with OA. The plan will take effect on urban hospitals - this is stated. Therefore, we are not interested in hospitals outside urban areas. The plan includes scholarships and 0% loans for students, relocation for practitioners, and immigration help to foreigners. I think the correct answer should assess the efficiency of these instruments.

thelosthippie you are posting very good questions indeed but if only you can provide us with OEs we will be grateful.

I have 2 questions in mind when i read through this stimulus:
- is lack of doctors & nurses the root cause of dangerous wait time? Choice A refers to number of doctors and nurses but not clear. Percentage does not mean anything.
- dangerous wait time mostly happen in urban major hospital or also in rural hospitals? Choice B is good.

In the country of Bedenia, officials have recently implemented a new healthcare initiative to reduce dangerous wait times at emergency rooms in the country’s hospitals. This initiative increases the number of available emergency nurses and doctors in urban settings: scholarships and no-interest loans are being offered to prospective students in these fields if they work in major city hospitals, relocation packages to urban centers are being offered for current emergency practitioners, and immigration rules are being changed to enable foreign emergency doctors and nurses to more easily move to Bedenia’s major cities.

Which of the following would be most important to determine in assessing whether the initiative will be successful?

A. What percentage of current nurses and doctors work in emergency medicine

B. Which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms

C. Whether a career in emergency medicine pays substantially less than other types of medicine

D. Whether wait times could be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors

E. Whether many foreign doctors and nurses are currently not allowed to enter Bedenia

They key here is URBAN v/s rural hospitals. The initiative talks about reducing dangerous wait times at country's hospitals while the details continue to highlight increasing the no of doctors and nurses at the URBAN CENTERS. What if dangerous wait times happen mainly in rural areas. So we need to determine which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms.

B is correct.

I fell for option D

If there are other means that are more feasible in avoiding the wait times, don't you think that will make the plan fall apart.

Please help me through this.

[quote="gordonf35"]In the country of Bedenia, officials have recently implemented a new healthcare initiative to reduce dangerous wait times at emergency rooms in the country’s hospitals. This initiative increases the number of available emergency nurses and doctors in urban settings: scholarships and no-interest loans are being offered to prospective students in these fields if they work in major city hospitals, relocation packages to urban centers are being offered for current emergency practitioners, and immigration rules are being changed to enable foreign emergency doctors and nurses to more easily move to Bedenia’s major cities.

Which of the following would be most important to determine in assessing whether the initiative will be successful?

A. What percentage of current nurses and doctors work in emergency medicine

B. Which hospitals in Bedenia have dangerous wait times in their emergency rooms

C. Whether a career in emergency medicine pays substantially less than other types of medicine

D. Whether wait times could be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors

E. Whether many foreign doctors and nurses are currently not allowed to enter Bedenia



Hello, everyone, I wonder why D and E is not a correct answer?

In my opinion,the use of "dangerous"is the key which rules out D.

"reduce dangerous wait times at emergency rooms in the country’s hospitals"- from the country's hospital the next sentence jumps to urban settings. so rural areas are being disregarded and we can say that the assumption taken is that this crisis is only in urban. Option B evaluates this assumption and hence the correct answer.
Honestly speaking, I most probably would have chosen D and if not for the paragraph below for the options.
It would be better if some mod edits and puts that section in the spoiler part.

This is an "evaluate the argument type of question".
Hence I went with D

In evaluate the assumption type of question, we are to evaluate a yes or no option and the answer should take 2 separate paths.
The assumption of the argument is that increasing the number of doctors and nurses will reduce wait times
Take option D
1-Yes. The wait times could be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors. This tears down the argument
2- No. The wait times could not be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors. This aids the argument.

Take option B
Which hospitals have dangerous wait times in their hospitals

1. Yes. Knowing this will help but it does not resolve whether increasing the number of doctors or nurses there is the answer
2- No. Knowing this is irrelevant but still it does not resolve whether increasing the number of doctors and nurses is the answer.

This is how I am looking at it. Could someone please point out the flaw in this reasoning.

This is an "evaluate the argument type of question".
Hence I went with D

In evaluate the assumption type of question, we are to evaluate a yes or no option and the answer should take 2 separate paths.
The assumption of the argument is that increasing the number of doctors and nurses will reduce wait times
Take option D
1-Yes. The wait times could be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors. This tears down the argument
2- No. The wait times could not be reduced by means other than increasing the number of available nurses and doctors. This aids the argument.

Take option B
Which hospitals have dangerous wait times in their hospitals

1. Yes. Knowing this will help but it does not resolve whether increasing the number of doctors or nurses there is the answer
2- No. Knowing this is irrelevant but still it does not resolve whether increasing the number of doctors and nurses is the answer.

This is how I am looking at it. Could someone please point out the flaw in this reasoning.

DmitryFarber Thank you so much. That really clears things up for me.

I foolishly choose E, once down to the choice between B and E.

I went with E because I figured that unless immigrants want to come work in the country, then changing rules will not affect the inflow of employee's.

However, having re-read the question I agree that B seems far better. It connects the question to the local waiting time, which does not have to be the same at all hospitals. We want to know if the increase of employee's would decrease the waiting times. To answer this question knowing which hospitals are currently experiencing high waiting times would be a good input.

Very good question. I chose D despite I knew that it talks about other plan. I found all other options completely wrong.

B is clever choice.

I think this is a poor question. 'Which hospitals' is a highly vague remark in option C, it does not in any way indicate urban or rural setting. 'Which' can refer to many other demographic indicators, making the option highly ambiguous. Experts, please share your thoughts on the quality of this question. Thanks.

TheLordCommander That isn't a flaw in the answer choice. It's fine for the answer choice to be vague. The point is that we do need to know which hospitals have long wait times. Are urban hospitals the problem? The fact that some kinds of information of this type (e.g. large vs. small hospitals) wouldn't help doesn't change the fact that we need this information. If we really knew exactly which hospitals were having trouble, that would allow us to consider whether the problem was primarily an urban one.